Is the culture of book reading dying or flourishing in Kashmir?
Modern technologies have impacted the functional activities of all walks of life, forcing some drastic lifestyle changes in humans everywhere in the world. The ongoing global pandemic has reinforced many of these changes. Kashmir is not an exception. For instance, internet-driven devices and digital media have impacted the book reading culture in Kashmir. People now mostly prefer to watch visuals and read electronic mode of content than book reading.
Earlier, the book lovers would be enthused to hold a book in hand, shuffle through its pages and smell the paper and ink. Now it is a small device you scroll, no smell of ink or paper, just lifeless words. As the academic sector have become more competitive, students, instead of reading for enriching their wisdom, read to better their percentages in examinations. This trend too has impacted the book reading culture.
Interestingly, there is divided opinion on whether the shift is good or bad. Some say since the change is universal and unavoidable, better to accept and adopt it. But some say that abandoning hard copies of books will have long-term and adverse repercussions on society. They suggest that the young population should be motivated to ensure they do not abandon the book reading culture.
KASHMIR IMAGES spoke with some concerned people to understand the present scenario regarding the book reading culture in the Valley. However, there are no clear-cut answers to the questions. Some insist that, unlike in the past, people, especially the youngsters simply do not read books now. They say only elderly people, who are not familiar with the devices, do, but the youngsters mostly have switched to the digital mode. But others say that the book reading culture is not dying, rather it is flourishing in Kashmir.
Here are the excerpts:
Khalid Bashir Ahmad
Author, poet, former Kashmir Administrative Services (KAS) officer
Book reading culture is not dying in our society. In fact, the years of conflict have generated more interest in the youngsters to read about Kashmir as other subjects. I say this with my personal experience. I had yet to get the first copy of my latest book —KASHMIR, Looking Back in Time: Politics, Culture, History— and a number of copies had already been ordered online. In fact, all my work has received good response from local readers which indicates that people here have not lost interest in book reading.
As long as you provide quality content there would be no dearth of readers. Unlike in the past, the young generation spends on purchasing books rather than hiring them from the libraries. Perhaps that is also because our public libraries do not provide latest titles as their purchase procedure leaves much to be desired. When we were young, we used to go to the libraries to get the books to read; or, we would go to the reading rooms to sit and read there. I, along with some of my friends, had membership at the SPS library in Srinagar, when I was in 10th class. We would mostly read novels those days. We had not enough money to buy books from the market. But today’s youngsters have no such issues. Online markets have made it easier for them. Now, books are delivered at one’s doorstep. A good number of youth prefer to read books in digital format. That is quite OK.
Another encouraging aspect is that in recent years many youngsters have turned to writing and have come up with excellent books. This is an encouraging trend and goes a long way in promoting book reading culture.
Mohammad Rafi
Director, Libraries & Research, J&K
We have observed that people mostly like to read e-books rather than hard copies. Yet, there is a good number of people who come to our libraries to get books to read. Annually, people hire more than 80 thousand books from our libraries. We have kept all the possible facilities available to the readers at our libraries.
Besides that, we are taking several measures to keep youngsters motivated for book reading. For example, we recently had organized a book review competition, and we were pleased to see the overwhelming response from the students. About 200 students from class 8th to graduation level participated in the event.
There are 71 Public Libraries run by the Department of Libraries & Research in the Kashmir Division. These include 3 Central Libraries (SPS Library Srinagar, City Central Library Srinagar & Oriental Research Library Srinagar), 10 District Libraries, 23 Tehsil Libraries, 8 Block Libraries, 20 Border Block Libraries and 7 Shrine Libraries.
Jammu and Kashmir has the distinction of having the oldest libraries in the region, which include SRS Library Jammu established in 1879 and SPS Library Srinagar established in 1898. The Oriental Research Library, Srinagar, a treasure trove of rare manuscripts and books was established in 1904.
The Department has a repository of 13 Lakh books (including some rare books) and 5506 Manuscripts in different languages in its libraries. There are 82525 registered members in libraries and the average footfall at these libraries is around 2.55 lakh per annum.
Given the overwhelming demand by students, the Libraries Department has made available around 350 titles of free reference books/study material from reputed publishers in its libraries to help students, especially those who can’t afford to purchase such costly material, to prepare for competitive examinations like IAS, JKAS, NEET, JEE, CAT, CLAT, GMAT, etc.
Ovais Ahmad
Assistant Professor, Department of Persian, Amar Singh College, Srinagar
Every word that one reads adds to the knowledge and worth of an individual. Reading expands one’s horizons by helping in developing the core human values like compassion, creativity, empathy, humility, wisdom, and spirituality. It’s amazing how the internet has revolutionized our world by making literature easily accessible and within our reach. Youth have much more access to books than ever before. The amount of online content consumed today far outweighs the number of books read or sold. I remember my father relating to me how he was obliged to copy complete book chapters by hand sitting in a library for hours on end during his student days simply because he had no access to a photocopier. In that respect, there is no denying the fact that we certainly are in a marginally better position now than we were ten to thirty years ago, and thankfully so. The real question however is that, is our younger generation really benefiting from this stream of information available at their fingertips? Is our younger generation getting any better or more efficient at how they use online content?
While there may not be a straight answer to this question but it is worth considering the fact that in spite of all the ease that technology has ushered in, it has on the flip side exposed youth to the overwhelming amount of stimuli from various sources and it has become extremely hard for users to focus on one single thing. Being focused while consuming online content is hard, being focused means that one makes well-informed and conscious decisions regarding the choice of content with a specific outcome in mind. One has to focus while reading and it takes a lot of time and effort to do that. So, with the kind of attention span that we nowadays have, instead of going through the trouble of immersing themselves in books, students find it convenient to read about a subject in a passing and get done with it. Neither can this approach afford an understanding to contemplate what they have read, nor does it offer a level of thought to help nurture the ideas and concepts.
In addition to that, education is looked upon as a mere means to prepare for the job market. Such a reductionist approach towards literacy has adversely impacted the very outlook and worldview of the students. Sadly, youngsters today lack the motivation to understand the value of education. They find it difficult to understand how reading Shakespeare, Gani Kashmiri, Galib, Iqbal, Mehjoor would enrich and add value to their lives. It is sad to see these youngsters measure themselves by the number of likes they receive on their social media posts.
Mehrosha Mohiuddin
Teacher/student from Sadoora, Anantnag Kashmir
I am a student, and also a teacher in a private school at Sadoora in Anantnag. I have been trying to promote book reading culture among the young students in my village for past more than a year. Early last year, after the pandemic forced the closure of the schools in the Valley, I invited some students from the nearby government school for free coaching. Since then I have been helping these students. Presently, I have 16 students, up to the class 8th. I also provide them with some books beyond their syllabus to ensure they develop a reading habit. People are kind enough to donate old books to me for this cause. I want these students to spend less time with their phones, and rather read books in their free time. I have observed that reading books have helped these students a lot. On the basis of my experience, I would say that if books are available, a large number of students can be motivated to develop book-reading habits. There should be a library in every village of the Valley, so that book reading culture is developed and promoted in the society.
Zainab-Ul-Nisa
Class 11th student
I like reading books. But I read digital books only. I find them more effective and easier to read. A phone with an internet connection is all that we need to read any number of books. It is like carrying a movable library with us all the time. We can carry it along wherever we go, and we can access the books at anytime and anywhere.
Thanks to the latest technology, e-Readers have now offline accessibility as well. We can access the e-books even without having an internet connection to our phones. As a book lover, I strongly believe that digital learning technology is more helpful. In this digital era, where most students are already glued to devices, gadgets can turn out to be a productive alternative to traditional book reading. The fantastic feature that takes the e-Book experience to a different level is the audio books. The audio books are most convenient.
Be it traditional or digital, what actually matters is the standard of the books one reads. A reader should know that the time spent on a good book is an investment, while a low-quality book is a wastage of time. Therefore, we need to be cautious while choosing the content to read. One should not read everything that comes his or her way. By choosing high-standard books, one is choosing higher knowledge. Besides, careful selection develops insights.
Salim Salik
Author, columnist, and critic
With the expansion of digital content in the virtual world, the book reading tendency has receded in our society over the years. And, there are sufficient reasons to believe that the number of offline readings would further decrease with the passage of time.
For instance, visuals are more attractive and inspiring than text. Since the visual content pertaining to every aspect of life is easily available in abundance in the virtual world, most people are fascinated by it.
Moreover, people earlier used to read books for entertainment purposes besides attaining knowledge. One would happily stay engaged for hours with a book and feel relaxed. However, now there are plenty of entertainment avenues in the virtual world, which are available to everyone for almost free. Take, for example, Facebook and YouTube: These platforms can keep a person engaged and entertained for hours. That is why we see many people mindlessly scrolling through social media all day. For many, social media has become a novel avenue of entertainment and a source of knowledge and information these days. This has reduced the scope for book reading further.
Moreover, earlier students would read even beyond syllabus books for research purposes, or to prepare better notes for their exams. However, since, everything is available on the internet for free; many of them have developed a ‘copy past’ culture. Even some people have attained scholarly degrees by the ‘copy-paste method’. It is not a secret anymore that MPhils and PhDs are done on the work stolen from the virtual world.
Furthermore, the availability of the contents online has reduced the need of reading hard copies of the books. The virtual world has turned buyers of books into consumers of online content. Sadly, some youngsters think reading books is a useless and time-consuming activity. When we were young, we would read books without thinking about the outcome of this activity. Our purpose of book reading used to be either an attempt to grasp some knowledge out of these books or get ourselves entertained for some time. But, today’s students read merely to pass the exams.
It is sad, but we must acknowledge the fact that the introduction of internet-driven gadgets has forced several lifestyle changes. Many of these changes would have adverse repercussions in the future. We, as a society will have to pay a price for abandoning book reading culture. We must learn from the West. They are the masters and creators of all the latest technology and gadgets, yet they have kept the book reading culture intact in their societies.
